[Oorexx-announce] ooRexx 4.0 Beta now Available

[David A. <dav...@gm...>]

The first beta of ooRexx 4.0 is now available at
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=119701 
(SourceForge). The beta program will last as long as necessary or until 
the team deems the product ready for release. The team believes the beta 
will last until at least until May 30, 2009. This should give everyone 
time for testing their current production programs against this new 
release. But if additional time is needed then the team will consider 
such requests.

Here is a partial list of the enhancements and improvements available in 
ooRexx 4.0.
 
 - The entire guts of the interpreter have been ripped out and replaced. 
This will enhance the interpreter in several ways including specifically 
performance, maintainability, and         extensibility.

- A whole new set of application programming interfaces (APIs) have been 
added. Although these utilize C++ they are extremely easy to use. All of 
the external function libraries have been upgraded to use these new APIs.

- RexxUtil and all the other standard external function libraries have 
been converted to utilize the new C++ APIs. In many cases this will 
improve the execution speed of some of the functions.

- Several new utility classes have been added including a sockets class, 
Mime classes, and SMTP classes.

- The documentation has been enhanced and includes additional 
information on the new C++ APIs as well as the new classes and methods 
that are available.

- The *nix versions of rxapi now runs as a system wide daemon. Shared 
memory has been eliminated in this program and it now uses a sockets 
interface for communication.

- ooDialog has been revised to utilize the new C++ APIs. Many new 
classes and methods have been added. A large number of bugs have also 
been fixed.

- The ooRexx Subversion incubator also has a number of new subprojects 
which demonstrate the new C++ APIs. These include RexxGTK and 
Mod_ooRexx,                   both of which will be released soon after 
ooRexx 4.0 is released.

We also hope to expand the number of platforms the ooRexx supports but 
as yet we have no specifc plans in this area.


W. David Ashley
for the ooRexx Team